topic Re: URGENT: Medical Emergency in Hawaii - Roaming blocked. in Roaming

URGENT: Medical Emergency in Hawaii - Roaming blocked.

Sp711 — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 20:31:05 GMT

Hi there, I ve been in Hawaii for a week and I cannot receive or make calls to the UK. I had a medical emergency on the journey and cannot call my insurance. I have a 15 day roaming pass and can make WhatsApp calls receive text but my phone won't make any calls. I have a Huawei P20 but didn't realise this would be a problem. They are having to call my friends phone buts it's inconvenient when they are going about their day. Can anyone help please. Thank you.

Re: URGENT: Medical Emergency in Hawaii - Roaming blocked.

XRaySpeX — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:00:09 GMT

Often just rebooting the phone is the simple remedy. Also try selecting a network manually rather than auto.

Did you receive a Welcome text upon arrival?

Are you on contract or PAYG? Had you used that SIM for making calls or texts in UK before leaving to go abroad?

If you are on contract, did you activate roaming on your EE a/c before leaving UK by texting ROAMING to 150? Having a roaming billing add-on doesn't of itself activate roaming on your a/c. Having roaming activated on your EE a/c, not just on your device, is crucial to using your contract SIM abroad.

Otherwise if you are on contract you need to call CS to get your roaming activated. Try calling CS on the Freephone no. in my sig. using a web-calling app over WiFi.

Re: URGENT: Medical Emergency in Hawaii - Roaming blocked.

ee_user14 — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:07:43 GMT

@XRaySpeX wrote:
If you are on contract, did you activate roaming on your EE a/c before leaving UK by texting ROAMING to 150?

The OP has said they are able to receive texts abroad. They also imply (although admittedly don't make clear) that they have a mobile data connection.

This almost certainly means roaming is enabled. Far better would be to establish whether various roaming has worked before?

I fully appreciate the copy & paste nature of FAQ, but sometimes it needs adapting a little - otherwise the advice to manually select other networks could get lost.

Re: URGENT: Medical Emergency in Hawaii - Roaming blocked.

XRaySpeX — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:12:47 GMT

@ee_user14 : Often receiving free texts while abroad is possible whatever the roaming status of the a/c, particularly on PAYG. Now if OP had said they can receive texts, it'll be a diff kettle of fish.

Hence I retract not a word!

Re: URGENT: Medical Emergency in Hawaii - Roaming blocked.

Alex_H — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 10:00:13 GMT

Hi @Sp711,

Welcome to the EE Community

I am very sorry to hear of your medical emergency, I hope you are doing ok. I can understand having phone trouble during this time will have been a big worry so I am sorry to hear you have been having issues making calls whilst abroad.

I would recommend first trying the advice provided so far in this thread, particularly trying to change to other available roaming networks to see if that works.

If that doesn't please do call us from another phone on our call us from abroad number so that one of our guides can access your account and run some diagnostics on the issue.

Alex